Inside Story: God’s Perfect Timing

God’s Perfect Timing

By Eliane Hosokawa Imayuki

Marcia Yuassa, one of the thousands of Brazilian immigrants working long hours at factories in central Japan, was forced to stay at home after falling ill.

Image © Pacific Press

Suffering severe pain, she didn’t know how she could take care of her family or even survive. She cried out to God not to let her die.

Unable to do much in her ill condition, she spent a lot of time on the Internet.

One day, she stumbled across an online series of Bible-based health courses by a Seventh-day Adventist physician in Brazil. She watched every YouTube video that she could find and, as she learned about various aspects of a healthy lifestyle, she also heard about the seventh-day Sabbath.

Then, while looking on social media for friends from her youth in Brazil, she found a former classmate who recently had created a profile. Marcia happily reconnected with her old friend and enthusiastically told her in a call about her new findings about health and the Sabbath.

The friend listened attentively and, when Marcia finished, said she worshipped Jesus on the Sabbath. She had become a Seventh-day Adventist after losing contact with Marcia. The two women began to study the Bible together.

After some time, the friend sent contact information for an Adventist church and its pastor in her region. But when Marcia looked up the church’s address, she realized that it was in another city, too far away to visit because she did not drive. Still she called the church and spoke with me, the pastor’s wife.

To her surprise, I informed her that a small Bible study group had been formed in Iwata, the city where she lived, and would meet for the first time that same week.

Three days later, the group met less than a mile (a kilometer) from Marcia’s house, so close that she could walk there. God has healed her illness, and Marcia, 54, has not missed a meeting since.

Marcia learned about the seventh-day Sabbath through the Internet. Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will go to a project to help many Japanese people, especially young people, learn about Jesus through the Internet. Thank you for planning a generous offering.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

Amen!